Why Scott Brown can’t count on Wall Street

In his first two campaigns for the Senate, Scott Brown could count on the lock-step support of Wall Street — first in his campaign to deprive Democrats of the 60-seat majority, and then as the man standing between bank-bashing Democrat Elizabeth Warren and high office.

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Two years after he was defeated by Warren in a race in which opponents labeled him “Wall Street’s favorite senator,” Brown now finds himself up against an opponent with friendly ties to the New Hampshire and national business community.

Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who raised more than $4.5 million last year, has taken in donations from PACs of banks and financial services trade groups including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, American Bankers Association and Financial Services Roundtable, according to Federal Election Commission records. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan gave her a $2,500 check in October, after having donated to her opponent in 2008 — former GOP Sen. John Sununu.

It’s too early to say exactly how Brown’s campaign finance will shape up — he’s raised around $275,000 in the first few weeks of announcing his Senate bid — though Democrats insist he will have ample backing from powerful business interests.

But financial services insiders as well as Republican strategists are candid about the challenge Brown faces.

“Sen. Shaheen has actually always had a fairly close relationship with the financial industry, back to her time as governor. She’s a talented politician, people know her, she’s been around, she’s level-headed. All of these things the business community appreciates,” said Stephen DeMaura, president of Americans for Job Security and former director of the New Hampshire Republican Party. “So all of that means that it’s going to be a lot harder for Brown to raise the kind of money he raised from Wall Street last time.”

American Bankers Association CEO Frank Keating said this week that the trade group’s policy is to back the candidates that the state bankers prefer. The former Oklahoma governor pointed out that when the group’s PAC donated to Shaheen in November, it was well before Brown had jumped in the race, adding that ABA may still give to Brown later in the year.

“Sen. Shaheen has been good for financial service needs for people,” Keating said. “And in Scott Brown’s case … he is an enormously attractive candidate.”

There’s been relatively little buzz on Wall Street so far this year about the New Hampshire Senate race — a stark contrast to the dynamics surrounding the 2012 Massachusetts Senate election, when the industry was overwhelmingly concerned with defeating Warren.

Warren “put herself squarely against the industry, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right? … In other words, then Scott Brown becomes your biggest friend because he’s running against Elizabeth Warren,” said Robbert van Batenburg, director of market strategy at the brokerage firm Newedge. “Now, that’s not really the case.”

Another reason for the lack of Wall Street interest is that the New Hampshire race isn’t among the handful of midterm contests that Republicans are bullish or downright confident about winning this year — at least not yet — as the party seeks to gain the majority in the Senate. Brown’s allies insist that this could soon change as he begins catching up to Shaheen — a WMUR poll this month had Shaheen leading Brown 45 percent to 39 percent.

While in office, Brown wasn’t always a reliable vote for Wall Street.

Soon after arriving in Washington, Brown voted for the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill, which he has argued exemplified his willingness to work across the aisle. His critics, however, argue that he was responsible for watering down important aspects of the law, particularly a section on banks’ ability to invest in hedge funds and private equity funds, as a favor to his Wall Street allies.

Brown’s vote for Dodd-Frank didn’t stop the banking industry from filling his campaign war chest.